Yes...and it really about destroyed me when she left the marriage.
I thought I had found it too. Same as you though, I was just fooling myself.
I wonder why lush buries some posts like this while they leave others up forever.C6nB8QPtpgo05TUi
true love? I think I've found it. though it is a love-hate relationship with a LOT of fights.
Well, I say true love, because I'm in a long distance relationship. It's been nearly 4 years now, and I still love her more than anything, or anyone, expect my mom and sister.
Yes I have and experience it in abundance everyday. I do think that just because a relationship doesn't work it doesn't mean the love wasn't true while it lasted.
Yes, I have. And after 20 some years, she died. I often pose the old question to myself: is it better to have loved and lost, or to never have loved at all? and my answer is obvious to me: to have loved and lost…
I feel I have the deepest and most emotional love any one could have for a partner right at this moment. It has taken me several girlfriends, 1 marriage of 12 years, and around 30 years to accidentally find her(I believe it was fate that drew us together) Read my story about us and tell me what you think. An unexpected meeting of two souls ( How I met my soulmate )
I think that your "idea" of what true love is changes as you get older. I can honestly say that I was truly in love in my early 20's. It was the kind of love that made your heart ache. I would have willingly sacrificed anything for him. Was that type of love a good thing for me? No. I still love that person. We can talk to each other on a level that we can't talk to other people because we "know" each other in the deepest sense. I don't have to explain why I do things, because he knew me when and knows how it has shaped how I evolved. We have a child together.
Of course, after you have children love takes on a totally new shape. Just the thought of the love I have for my children can bring me to tears. They taught me how to love, just not to fall into it. I'd fight to the death for them and everything I have is theirs.
I've been married for 1 year, second marriage for both. Both of us swore off marriage a long time ago, disillusioned and hurt. We were friends with benefits for quite a while and fought hard to just keep it that way. But, we were being monogamous and wanting to be together more than apart. We lived 2 hours away. Is it love? Yes. Mature. Truly supportive. Healthy. Sexilicious. Respectful. We are good together and independently. That's love. Money isn't a problem--Gawd that helps.
great - now that Eagles tune is stuck in my head because of the title of this thread.
there were two relationships where I've experienced *varying degrees* of what I *think* is true, almost unconditional love, but I'm sure the next woman in my life will once again re-define that word for me.
I did find amazing love with when I married my ex husband. As already echoed, the failure of that union and subsequent death of "the dream" was one of the most painful experiences of my life even though I was the one that ended things. I was bruised and beaten and exhausted and jaded and became cynical about love for a long while after my break-up. Thankfully, I did the work that was needed to better myself and managed to heal a lot of old wounds and make peace with it all.
These days, I'm so grateful to have found love again for the second time.
No,never. I marroed young for a person that has no emotional sences and makes fun of people that show their emotions. I knew he was like that, but back then i was heart broken and thought that its better to have an emotionless but loyal relationship, than search for true love. I dont know the deffinition of true love, but i know that if its not mad, extraordinary and passionate its not worth it..
I love the responses in here. I wish I could have a direct conversation with every one of you! As for true love, I think Aristotle actually has a lot to offer, saying that we must first be friends, and that being friend means to wish for and do good for the other for their own sake, as opposed to doing good for them in order to gain some benefit for ourselves. My general story:
I grew up in a home that was pretty severely emotionally and psychologically abusive. Like it or not, it shaped what I thought it meant to receive love and to give love,as everyone's environment does. I used to have a hard time relating this to people who grew up in a home that nurtured their basic human self. I think people take for granted that they weren't raised to believe they are an insult to the universe, or even to question their self worth.
The first time I thought I was in love, I was just emotionally dependent on my partner. I was 16. Suicide was the plan after that one. The second time i thought I was in love, I was just an arrogant possessive prick out of boot camp supercharged with testosterone and thinking I had to die to prove my love. I lost her quick. Martyrdom in Iraq was the plan after that one. Anyone who has done the research will tell you that, given my background, it was 10 times more likely that I would become abusive in my relationships, and that's what happened in both of these cases.
I spent the next 7 years of my life single... learning about myself, taking responsibility for my life, and dealing with my past.
A couple years ago I was dating a girl who I think I actually succeeded in loving. Unfortunately, I was not ready to be "in love". I tried to make the point to her that I was NOT ready to fall in love, that I was doing some serious internal work and often shared my progress with her, and frequently commented that I wasn't the idealized version of me that she saw. I wanted to know that she saw me for all of my strengths and all of my flaws. I couldn't get that point across to her in time and she left me. Ironically she left me because she thought I wanted to leave her, and even pointing out that I didn't seemed to only strengthen her conviction to not work things out. She had a thing about not contradicting herself or exposing her own errors. I was devastated. It was kind of weird that even after dating a short time we had connected so well that anywhere we went people assumed we had been together for 6 years. It felt like I had lost someone I was with for 6 years. As tragic as it was to lose her, it was a turning point for me. As a result of the heartache and everything I learned about myself I found closure about a lot of things that have happened in my life. I worry about her a lot. In any case, I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to love her and myself, and care about what's good for both of us. Her for her own sake and me for my own sake. It was like the lonely years of my life leading up to that relationship were about becoming a better person so that I could be better for her. I think I still love her, although I don't know if I could ever date her again just because of how she ended things.
Two years later I'm still single although I have dated some friends, and I've begun volunteering as an advocate at a domestic violence shelter. Realizing how far I've come in my life I've started to consider that I may actually be worth loving, that it's now safe to love me, and that I may actually be capable of loving again. Until then, I'll just keep doing good in the world.